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Bon Journal

E-mail programs

In response to my agony
over how to get my various free web-site e-mails
to load and be saved permanently offline, the Hungry Poet, also known as the Computer
Guru, has kindly responded below.

courtesy of the Hungry Poet

The
most popular POP email clients for personal use are by far Outlook, Outlook Express
(MSOE), and Eudora. I will not cover Eudora because I have stopped using this
quite a while back, and have no hesitation in recommending Outlook or MSOE depending
on what you want to go with it.

marginally more secure than
MSOE although still susceptible to mass mailing worms

folder contents
can be properly password protected, whereas MSOE content can be "peeped"
easily even when password protected

comes with integrated Calendar, To
Do List, Appointments, Notepad, etc which can be very useful

supports
Mail Faxing and Fax Mailmerge interface with software such as Winfax Pro

takes up less disk space because of folder compression and single file storage
whereas MSOE is space hogging

However, some of the major disadvantages
of Outlook versus MSOE are:

marginally more troublesome to maintain/support/manage
whereas MSOE is relatively simpler to archive/move/manipulate etc

cannot
recover from damaged/corrupted folders easily because of compression/encryption
whereas corrupted MSOE folders can be recovered partially if not fully with relative
ease

If you are a KISSer and want to keep it simple (no need for calendar/to-do-list/appointments
and not concerned about confidentiality), then MSOE is recommended because it's
simpler.

Here are some of the features with "workarounds" in MSOE
assuming you normally use MSOE to retrieve & send messages, and may wish to
use web services at cyberecafes while on the road. All these will work for Outlook
equally well.

b) Retrieve all unread incoming messages
into one MSOE mailbox from most free Web mail services such as Yahoo.com and Hotmail.com
which provide pop mail access options. However retrieving from Email.com or Mail.com
and some other "free" web mail services require paying a nominal fee
for the "value-added" services.

c) Send messages from MSOE using
SMTP servers from your ISP account, Yahoo.com or your web hosting account if they
offer this option (not all do).

d) Access your emails globally without carrying
your notebook PC around. While on the road, go to any cybercafe or set-top boxes
in hotel room and use Yahoo.com, Hotmail.com or Email.com etc to retrieve unread
emails from your ISP account and web host email account. You can even retrieve
unread messages from all your different web mail services into one single mailbox,
for instance using Email.com to retrieve unread mails from Yahoo.com, Hotmail.com
etc. You can also set an option to retain the retrieved messages in their original
servers.

e) Fool most mass-mailing worms by configuring MSOE default mail
account in such a manner that most mass-mailing worms will not be able to mass
mail from MSOE even if you happen to be infected by a new worm before your virus
scanner is able to detect/stop it. However this is not an excuse not to keep your
virus scan data up to date, ideally on a weekly basis, and definitely not less
than monthly basis.

f) Dodge spammers by setting up different email addresses
for different purposes and maintain a strict discipline of their usage. This is
not fool-proof but it helps. In addition, MSOE can be easily configured to ignore/discard
known spam mail but this is one step too late. It may be necessary to change some
email addresses periodically (eg every 3 or 6 months) if you are a frequent victim
of spammers or you are being "massively" spammed. Rule #1 is never to
publicly reveal your ISP account email ID (your "permanent" email address)
to anyone other than personal friends or known business contacts. For public use,
preferably use email addresses from free web based mail services so you can change
it easily and freely as necessary.

g) If you use MSOE regularly, you must
constantly remind your friends never to send large attachments by email - it slows
everybody down. The smart approach is to use Yahoo Briefcase to upload/download
large attachments. Apart from using Winzip to compress large files, you should
also break very large attachments into separate chunks if you are not on broadband,
ideally not more than 1MB per chunk.

In addition to the above, and apart
from your virus scanner (McAfee or Norton), you need to implement some additional
protection/disciplines as follows:

I
have not elaborated the above workarounds because of space/time unless you have
questions. If you need elaboration on any one, or help in setting up, feel free
to let me know which one. Items (e) and (f) are especially interestng, but quite
lengthy.

22 October 2002 Tuesday

I didn't realise there is a difference between Outlook and Outlook Express.
But where can I get Outlook?